Rick Holmes: Strong talk at the 'Comment Cafe'

Rick Holmes

Monday

Oct 24, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 24, 2011 at 11:43 PM

In the Comment Cafe below my columns and editorials, the regulars often start the conversation by discussing how stupid and wrong I am in whatever opinion I offered that day. Some come to my defense or elaborate on my points. Then they start arguing among themselves, which sometimes descends into juvenile name-calling.

Before I begin, I want to thank all of you who are reading this on good, old-fashioned newsprint. Bless every graying hair on your heads. Now, forgive me while I write about something you can't see.

At the end of every column I write - and most every news story we publish - those who are reading on a computer find a bank of ads and, below that, a conversation among readers.

Once you've walked through this invisible door, you're no longer in the newsroom, where professional reporters do their best to present news and facts, with professional editors looking over their shoulders. You're now in what I call the Comment Cafe, where almost anything goes. Gossip is whispered. Opinions are shouted. Insults are hurled.

In the Comment Cafe below my columns and editorials, the regulars often start the conversation by discussing how stupid and wrong I am in whatever opinion I offered that day. Some come to my defense or elaborate on my points. Then they start arguing among themselves, which sometimes descends into juvenile name-calling.

Conversations like this are not everyone's cup of tea. I've developed a pretty thick skin, but I mostly resist the urge to get drawn into the fray. Even when the conversation gets out of hand, I'm not tempted to lock the door on the Comment Cafe. The back-and-forth is an added value to our readers, and venerable enterprise must do whatever it can to survive in a changing media marketplace.

Things can get even uglier in other rooms of the Comment Cafe. Stories about immigrants invariably spark rants from angry readers, often with overtones of bigotry. Stories about Obama bring predictable insults.

But it's the small-town stuff that too often brings out the smallest-minded commenters. I've seen invective hurled at the dead victims of tragic accidents. I've seen kids insulted as an extension of insults to their parents. I've seen workers taking anonymous shots at their bosses, public officials accused of crimes, gossip about the alleged extra-marital affairs of civic leaders and their spouses.

In the comments at the bottom of local news stories, volunteers who hold local office are skewered as if they were president or governor. The attacks get personal, and even if their targets have developed thick skin, the spouses of their targets often haven't. Controversial proposals are batted about not just with arguments, but with innuendo and misinformation by people who may have an undisclosed financial, political or personal interest.

Local officials don't like this new media phenomenon a bit, and they gave me an earful about it at a municipal managers' conference in Wareham this week. Outside, workers at A.D. Makepeace Co., the world's largest cranberry grower, were bringing in a record crop. Inside, complaints about the Comment Cafe were on the menu.

"Cyberbullying has grown out of control, aided and abetted by some members of the media," said Julian Suso, Framingham's town manager.

Other officials complained that ugliness in the comments section - and elsewhere - is discouraging people from running for public office. I share their worries. Especially here in New England, we rely on volunteers to make government work. If we let incivility discourage our neighbors from public service, it will end up hurting everyone.

Of particular concern is the anonymity we and most newspapers grant commenters. As the editor responsible for printing letters to the editor, I'm with you on that one. I believe in traditional Town Meeting rules: Anyone can speak, but you've got to state your name.

But keeping people honest is easier to say than enforce. Anyone can make up a name and establish an email account. And while forbidding anonymity would, I expect, tone down the nastiness, some of the most obnoxious commenters use their full names.

Then there's the question of moderating the comments and deleting the ones that are over the line. We do have standards, reflected in the "pool rules" at the bottom of each website page:

1. Keep it clean.

2. Stay on topic.

3. Be honest and accurate.

4. No personal attacks. Don't bash anyone based on their race, creed, heritage, or orientation.

6. Use the 'Report Abuse' button when you spot a rule violation. (Don't report comments just because you disagree.)

Deciding what crosses the line is more art than science, and Daily News editors sometimes disagree over whether a particular comment breaks a rule. The bigger problem is the volume of comments. The New York Times reportedly has 10 full-time staffers monitoring their comments, an investment newspapers of our size just can't handle.

Some small papers and websites require every comment be approved before it is posted, but that slows down the conversations and also requires a lot of staff time. Here at the Daily News we put commenters who repeatedly violate the rules on "moderation" status, meaning their comments must be approved before going up on the site, but we've hesitated to apply that to everyone.

Our alternative is to let the readers help police the site. Every comment has a "report abuse" button next to it. If you flag an offensive comment, an editor will take a look at it. But if nobody pushes that button, which is often the case, an editor may never look at it.

Another panelist at the municipal managers' meeting, Craig Sandler, owner-manager of State House News Service, advised the officials to make new media work for them. If a commenter has his or her facts wrong, refer them to a municipal site where the facts are posted. Create your own blog, he suggested, let people raise issues on your own turf, with your own rules governing anonymity and civility.

I suggested most municipal officials make a point to get coffee at a local spot where they can take the pulse of the community. They should use the comment threads, taken with several grains of salt, in the same way, to get a handle on what people are thinking.

One of my suggestions for newspapers is to put a better door at the entrance to the Comment Cafe. Make readers click on another button to see the comments, separating them further from the news columns. People still may not like what they hear - or read - at the Comment Cafe, but at least they will have walked in their on their own volition.

Rick Holmes, opinion editor of the MetroWest Daily News, blogs at Holmes & Co. (blogs.wickedlocal.com/holmesandco). He can be reached at rholmes@wickedlocal.com.

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